Cost.

Me, personally, I think that Illums are the best... in the early stages of the game.  To me, LRM's from the TEC could own any other LRF, once fully upgraded.  Damage wise, no, but the LRM has the largest engagement range I've seen in a ship (haven't played Entrenchment yet, so I can't say so for the Star Bases and Ogrov Cruisers) so an LRM could have destroyed an Illum before the Illum got to do lethal damage... at least I think so, havn't tested this yet.

Koda0

The most damaging LRM is the assailant for vasari.  Although they dont get any damange upgrade until very high into the miltiary tech tree, they will get charged missles which boost their firing damage to 15.  More importantly they get phase missles which combined together with subverters gives them... I think a 50% chance of bypasing shields(and mitigation) and doing full damage.  One you get the damage upgrades I believe their normal damage(as opposed to charged missles) is 16.  Overall these ships are pretty darn good for focus fire and the charged missles are good for just overall damage for hitting fleets.  I do think Illuminators are easier to use but if you can direct assailants well I believe their damage as a LRM is unsurpassed.

Depends who uses them.  If you know how to use em they are the best by far.

Well, for the Illums defensive ability, that does tip the scales, kinda, given how with TEC you get 1.5 times the frigate, and thus, since there are no fakes, can do more damage, and thus destroy the Illums at a much lower cost to the TEC player than to the Advent player.

Koda0

Thanks for all the great replys.

I'm still a pretty green player, I like to go crazy with the Beam Weapons upgrades and combine the Illuminators with Halcyon Carriers with spams of Bombers (both of which also use beam weapons) and then throw in a little of everything else to cover my bases. It's fun against AI. I imagine against human opponents it would be less successfull though.

Illums have the highest DPS potential. this does not make them the best LRF. 

lining up side-beam shots requires you to bring the Illums significantly closer to the enemy, almost negating the range advantage in the first place. you're trading safety for damage. alot of damage actually, so its a worthwhile trade most of the time. 

Assailants have the longest range by far if you count the boost from Charged Missiles. they also benefit the most from upgrades since Shield Bypass is the strongest DPS increase for any weapon system you can research, and you're definitely going to research it since it benefits your squadrons as well. 

Javelis probably produce the highest damage on a fleet-wide basis though since you can produce 50% more of them then Illums or Assailants. the extra numbers more than make up for their shortcomings. 

i think the most significant factor in comparing these 3 ships is not anything related to the ships themselves though. its the Energy Amplification Aura on the Halcyon Carrier. Illuminators with +22% firing speed are the best LRFs by a gigantic margin. Without a Halycyon supporting them they aren't noticeably better than the other LRFS. 

and Assilants can do 15% more damage in their own culture. Javelis get left out, unfortunately, seeing as how they have no anti-matter and thus cannot benefit from TEC culture. 

The Javelis also can get a 12% range increase through research. Both of these upgrades are Tier 7 Military/Hostility and have missile/beam damage research prerequisites. The difference is that the Javelis has a longer base range, its range upgrade at level 1 allows the player to research the Novalith Cannon, and its prerequisite research topics are at Tiers 2, 4, and 6 (the Advent's prerequisite research subjects are at Tiers 3, 4, and 6).

With an Akkan with Targeting Uplink, a Javelis could get a total 32% increase in range (although its only good for getting in the first shot off).

I don't believe so.  This is a common misperception because Zyrxil had the range distances swapped on Assailants & TEC LRMs.  See Annatar's post.  The base TEC LRM missile range is now 9,800, vs Assailants 7,820 base.  Even Assailants with the 25% tier 4 Charged Missiles range increase fall slightly short (7,820*1.25= 9,775).  (Unfortunately, both are slightly below the 10,000 range of starbases?  But LRM's with tier 7 techs should be out of harms way).

I am an advent player and i often spam carriers-illum. For me, the best advantage of the illum is that it can attack the ennemy capital ship in the same time they attack the light fregates using their side beams. Your adversary would have to make a critical choice soon in the battle : does he retreat his cap or not ? Ok, you can have the same result with assaillants or LRM focus fire (particulary assaillants thnaks to phase missile) but you won't take the LF in the same time.

Well, i never suceeded in using cluster warhead efficiently. The AoE is quite small and the amount of damage is not big too. But maybe i have something wrong. I made a research on the foum to see if there was a thread like "cluster warhead rules" or something like that so i thought that it was a weak power.

All the LRF's behave a bit differently, but assuming someone plays them to their advantages, Illuminators are best overall.  LRM are good for their cost, but kinda fragile.  Assailants NEED to be upgraded, or they are the worst.  Without their upgrades, they are like a chubby hard-to-kill LRM, just more expensive.